No. 216.] 397 



lages of small size, there is an observable difference over the isolated 

 country dwelling, in the proportionate amount of disease prevailing; 

 proving conclusively that the conpregation of animal and vegetable 

 matters, with their constant effluvia, which has less chance of escape 

 from the premises, in proportion to the absence of free circulation of 

 air, is detrimental to the health of the inhabitants. 



These circumstances have never yet been investigated in this city, 

 as they should be. Our people, especially the more destitute, have 

 been allowed to live out their brief lives in tainted and unwholesome 

 atmospheres, and be subject to the silent and invisible encroachments 

 of destructive agencies from every direction, without one warning 

 voice being raised to point them to their danger, and without an 

 effort to rescue them from their impending fate. Fathers are taken 

 from their children, husbands from their wives, " ere they have lived 

 out half their days," — the widows and orphans are thrown upon 

 public or private charity for support, and the money which is ex- 

 pended to save them from starvation, to educate them in the public 

 schools, or perchance, to maintain them in the work-house or the 

 prison, if judiciously spent in improving the sanitary arrangements 

 of the city, and instilling into the population a knowledge of the 

 means by vrhich their liealth might be protected, and their lives 

 prolonged and made happy, would have been not only saved, but 

 returned to the treasury in the increased health of the population, a 

 much better state of public morals, and, by conseqence, a more easily 

 governed and respectable community. 



It is of course among the poorer laboring classes that such knowledge 

 is most wanted. The rich, though they may be equally ignorant of 

 the laws of life, and of the best means of its preservation, live in 

 larger houses, with freer ventilation, and upon food better adapted to 

 support health and life. Their means of obtaining greater comforts 

 and more luxuries, are to them, though perhaps unconsciously, the 

 very reason of their prolonged lives. Besides this, they are less 

 barrassed by the fears and uncertainty of obtaining for themselves 

 and families, a sufficiency of food and clothing. They are thus re- 

 lieved of some of the most depressing influences, which tend to reduce 

 the energy of mind and body in the poor, and render the latter 

 more susceptible to the inroads of disease. 



Sanitary regulations affect the pauper class of' the population 

 more directly than any other, because they live in situations and 

 circumstances which expose them more to attacks of disease. They 



